God sent me a new angel

by Stan Wilson

For long-time readers of Faith and Family, you may remember that I lost my wife, Linda, to ovarian cancer seven years ago. We were married for 17 years and we spent the last 5 years of our marriage working together on Faith and Family.

It was a sudden loss; only 3 days from the time that we learned of her illness until she left this earth to be with our Lord and Savior. I grieved, but I had no hard feelings and I immediately turned my thoughts and actions to helping to care for two of my grandchildren. I continued worshiping and serving our Lord and Savior and added Linda’s Faith and Family responsibilities to my list of duties.

In the Fall of 2018, I began to realize that I was lonely for a mate. I had not dated during the time and really didn’t have any “ladies” in the back of my mind. But God placed three ladies from my past in my life to help me through this journey. Two of these ladies contacted me via Facebook and we quickly developed a wonderful brother-sister relationship. We had been childhood friends from the 1960’s. I also had a desire to connect with the first girl whom I ever dated. Using some of my journalistic investigative skills, I found her in Japan and we quickly picked up our friendship. All three of these ladies are divorced and have absolutely no interest in developing a romantic relationship. But we are all strong in our faith in Christ and re-bonded as Brother and sisters in Christ. All three of them guided me, advised me and supported me as I sought to find a life-mate. Even the sister of my first girlfriend supported me and I still remember one of her comments; “If God has a lady for you, he will make her available and you will know it.”

I had been living the life of a widower, grandfather and bachelor, so I really didn’t have a list of “prospects.” The four ladies suggested that I consider using the internet dating services. I signed up with a few and even had a few dates. One of the ladies even said that she liked me very much, but there was no “spark” in our relationship. At that point, I really didn’t understand what she meant (after all, I’m a bit over 18). I just wanted to date and enjoy the company of a lady.

E-harmony listed a widow in Ulysses, but I didn’t contact her for a month or two because I didn’t see how such a long-distance could nurture a relationship. Actually, Janice “liked me” on E-harmony and it took me a month reply. We exchanged a few notes, and I didn’t hear back from my last message.

Janice wondered why I didn’t reply to her last message, so she looked me up thru my facebook account and she found my phone number. She called me one Saturday afternoon and we had a nice visit. She even re-sent me the E-harmony messages which had been lost in cyberspace. She placed her phone call to me as she was driving to Dodge City with one of her daughters. I invited her to supper that evening and her daughter drove her to my home.

“Love at First Sight.” When she stepped out of the car, my heart melted and my knees almost gave way. We had a wonderful evening and I began to wonder if God had sent her to me. We “clicked” immediately and I knew that I wanted to continue this relationship. When I returned her to her daughter, I gave her a high-school peck on the lips. She didn’t respond and I wondered if I had blown it.

I called her the next day and she commented that my peck took her by such a surprise that she didn’t know what to do. For the next two months we spent every possible minute with each other. Sometimes, she drove to Dodge City and other times, I drove to Ulysses. I was completely head over heels with her and she felt the same “spark”.

Less than two months into our relationship, I asked her to marry me and she agreed with a wonderful kiss and hug. We didn’t set a date at that point, but we discussed some possible times which would be possible with my Faith and Family schedule. We discussed how our marriage might work since she was a care-giver for a 99 year old lady in Ulysses.

During our courtship, I met her family, including her 90 year young mother who resides in a nursing home in Ulysses. Her family includes 3 adult children, 9 grandchildren, 2 great grandchildren, three brothers and a sister…all of whom have their own children and grandchildren. Since I an only child and I have only one child, her family seemed more like an “army” to me, and I jokingly referred to them as such.

Janice suggested July 15 as our wedding date and it seemed almost like a “God-send” to us as I got two extra weeks between the August and September issues of Faith and Family. We chose to be married in her childhood church in Ulysses by Pastor Nathan Engelman.

Postponed wedding trip. Since the publication date for the July issue of Faith and Family was July 18, we postponed our wedding trip until July 20 and we spent 4 days in Colorado Springs. We had a wonderful time visiting as many of the area attractions as we could. We planned on returning to Dodge City on Friday so that we would extend our time together to include many of the Dodge City events.

Crazy in love. We awoke Friday and started our return trip. There’s only one problem with this. Neither one of us realized that it was Thursday until we were half-way back to Dodge City, and we had left a day early.

You may ask why I call Janice my “second angel.” When I started Faith and Family, a friend suggested that I read the book, The Prayer of Jabez. That little prayer included the line “bless me and expand my territory.” Since I was starting a business, that really hit home with me. Linda didn’t start working with me on Faith and Family until seven years after I started it. About two years after she started, I realized that she had expanded my territory from about 20 towns to almost 50 towns. When I realized this, I started calling her my “angel” because she had truly expanded my territory, just as God did for Jabez.

One of the things which attracted me to Janice was her strong faith in Christ. She also loves to read and she asked if there was any way that she could help me with Faith and Family. We discussed how she might help me by representing the newspaper in Garden City and Ulysses, but she was already working three days a week as a care provider. This left her very little time to help with Faith and Family.

Less than a week before we were married, the 99 year old lady in Ulysses passed away and this left Janice without employment. We both realized that it must have been God’s intervention because this freed us to proceed with her employment with Faith and Family. God sent me Linda as my angel to expand my territory for Faith and Family and now he’s sent me Janice as my new Angel.

Yes, we have an awesome God.